She said the accident hasn’t changed her outlook on life at all, but it does give her a new set of challenges.

“It’s just like everybody else — if you’re paralyzed or able-bodied — you’re going to have a bad day. It just happens that, if you’re paralyzed, carpet can actually be one of the things that makes you have a bad day.

“You just get through them, just like you do everything else.”

Van Dyken-Rouen credited her strong workout regime as the reason for not only her quick recovery, but the reason she survived the crash.

“I really think that if I wouldn’t have been training the way I was training before the accident, I don’t think I’d be here,” she said.

In addition to the publicized injuries, she said she broke an additional four vertebra, effectively damaging her back from her shoulders to tailbone.

How did she recover? She reverted to her Olympic discipline.

“Except this time, instead of going for a gold medal, I was working to get my life back,” she said.